Other forms: befitting, befits, befitted
To befit is to be suitable for somebody's rank or occasion. Behave as befit the office.
It is formal and slightly archaic, and it survives mostly in the phrase as befits. What is said to befit a position says more about custom than about the person.
1verbbefitTo be suitable for somebody's rank or occasion.
“He was buried with the honours that befit a man of that rank.”
befit is a suiting.
Middle English
fit — an adversary of equal power
English
fit
English, today
befit
From be- + fit. fit Possibly from Middle English fit (“an adversary of equal power”), of unknown further origin. The original sense appears to have been "to marshal or deploy troops", which shifted to "to suit (troops to a certain location" > "suitable", and may be further related to Icelandic fitja (“to web, knit, cast on”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA